Novelty. Creativity. Do they really exist? Yes, but not if you are the person in which it came. You can't create with more than you have to create with and you can't be novel without already having the trivial building blocks in place to start with. It looks novel and creative to everyone else purely because they were missing the path of thought which took the author there. I don't think this is a depressing position at all. It just means that any one person is not responsible for any genius they're perceived to create on their own. Shakespeare would of been just another cave man if he was born 100 thousand years ago. Maybe the smartest and most adventurous of them but a primitive human. Just look what happens when a child gets raised by animals. They only develope as far as the intelligence around them allows.

You're missing the point. Novelty of thought happens. So, to say that there is no such thing is just plain false.


Now, in your defense, sorta, I understand what you're saying here. Novel thought does not just pop into existence ex nihilo. All thought has 'ingredients' and circumstantial context... novel thought notwithstanding.

Thought begins as simply as possible and grows in it's complexity. Knowledge is accrued. We all stand upon the shoulders of all the greats before us. Sometimes we still draw novel correlations between the things. To deny novel thought is to say that there had never been the first one.